Well you knew when the NCAA decided to get involved after the Freeh Report released that things were going to get bad for Penn State. Here’s what Mark Emmert and Co. have doled out as punishment to the PSU football program.

— A $60 million sanction that will be paid to programs preventing child sex abuse*.

— Vacate all wins from 1998-2011; the vacated wins will be reflected in Joe Paterno’s overall record.

— Four-year bowl ban.

— Reduced scholarships by ten in the first year with 20 for every year after during the length bowl ban.

Essentially, Penn State’s football and athletic program are f*cked.

But this is what happens when you live in a 24-hour news cycle world. The media kicks and screams for justice until the NCAA—which has never applied such penalties in any similar circumstance—finally does act, this being their knee-jerk reaction without debate or their own review.

True, there hasn’t been any situation in college athletics quite like what happened at Penn State, but that’s moot. Teammates have killed one another and the NCAA hasn’t punished simply for the criminal act. The NCAA’s swinging the morality hammer now that, despite the obviousness of Sandusky’s atrocities, still remains completely debatable.

This is especially true when those guilty have either died or will face the wrath of the criminal justice system—our designated purveyor of all societal morality. The NCAA’s jurisdiction lies in tattoos and whatever its definition of amateurism might be that day, neither of which Penn State sullied in this case.

Of course, the school benefited from not having this blow up sooner (especially in terms of revenue), but Chuck Klosterman summed up why NCAA involvement isn’t necessary on a recent B.S. Report with Bill Simmons.

“It’s not going to affect anything in the future. If this happens again—if there’s some pedophile at Arizona State—he’s not going to leave kids alone because he’s like, ‘man, Penn State got the death penalty for this. I would hate for Arizona State to get the death penalty.’ I don’t know how damaging the football program does anything but make some moral point.”

There should be punishment, but it shouldn’t be the NCAA’s responsibility to inflict. Their—and the Big Ten’s impending—sanctions are the under-reasoned responses to ambiguous guidelines and windbag media personalities. People will pay, yes, but no one who should—namely the athletes and students.

* – For context, the school’s athletic budget is somewhere in the region of a little over $100 million. According to student-run Onward State, student tuition does not go towards the school’s athletics budget, but $12 million of the athletic department’s $18 million profits went towards paying the tuition of scholarship athletes in 2009-2010.

But a lot of the kids PSU’s football team recruits end up graduating–I believe it’s somewhere in the region of 98%. So they go there to also get a degree. What about if these kids can’t find a football program that also has their matching major? What about if another school that does have a matching major/program won’t match with the same amount of money?

Then they stay at PSU. It’s been said that the scandal did not really impact the recruiting efforts of the new regime. As such, the incoming recruits had the choice to not go to PSU in the first place. It may have been that they really wanted to be a Nittany Lion most of all. That they wanted to be there at that school. I grew up in Eastern PA. There are many who look forward to be there regardless. I have reason to believe very few will transfer out to begin with.

They are a university. They overcharge for tuition, they HAD revenue from football games (thats forever done)… They got money. But they better start of new ways to make money, merchandise aint gonna sell anymore. Start slangin bean pies PSU!

ESPN published an article maybe 6 mths ago. In a nutshell, college football outranks all the other sports. It was like a 7 to 1 margin. In fact, most of the other sports (excl. bball, which still makes pennies at most schools when compared to football) don’t even generate money.

the statue coming down and an asterix on paterno’s legacy, but i dont know if the players deserve punishment. the schoo is prolly gonna be hit with tons of lawsuits, let the institution suffer, they are the guilty ones. the players/students dont deserve to have their lives altered if they had nothing to do with what happened.

If you’re a standout player, then yes, it’s real easy to transfer. If you’re anyone else on that team it’s not because another school has to put up the money to sign you, even if that scholarship doesn’t count against their total.

“Big Ten says Penn State won’t get bowl revenues for 4 years. Has been $2M per year per school, projected to be worth a total of $13M. The 2010 Penn State football season now no longer happened financially either. Program grossed $72.7M in revenues, now has $73M in fines.” — [twitter.com]

Also from Rovell, it looks like PSU is going on a payment plan to cover the fine — “Penn State says it will pay $60 million fine over a FIVE YEAR PERIOD ($12 million a year). Very easy to do. “

USC, UNC, Miami, Alabama, and other schools have all had penalties due to NCAA infractions, granted nothing compared to the Sandusky incident, where the current student athletes have had to bear the punishment. Look @ USC, two year postseason ban and lost of scholarships, yet all the parties that were involved were no longer associated w/ the school. UNC and Ohio St are others where coaches were fired and players susupened but you still get bowl bans and scholarship losses. I agree the innocent shouldn’t be punished but thats not how the NCAA works until rules are changed

I dunno…I think Chuck Klostermann is dead wrong about this changing things in the future. Sure it may not deter a pedophile from committing his crimes, but that’s not what these NCAA penalties are about. If Sandusky had been turned in by Penn State the first time they caught him, then the school would have received no penalties.

This is punishment for covering things up. This is punishment for elevating the importance of a football program over the importance of children’s health and criminal justice. The threat of an NCAA penalty won’t make pedophiles stop being pedophiles, but it will make administrator’s think twice about covering up illegal activity to save face. The cost-benefit analysis on this sort of stuff just shifted. Going forward, NCAA is trying to make transparency the obvious choice over secrecy.

And yes, it is a shame for the athletes, but the blame for jeopardizing these students’ futures still rests with Penn State. And I don’t see this reaction as knee-jerk or not properly thought-out. I think it’s important to set a zero-tolerance precedent for cases like these immediately. If anything, I’m a bit surprised it’s this lenient. I was expecting Penn to have no program at all for the next few years.

This should certainly go to court no doubt, and that’s when you will see the president and other administrators go down. But I think you can also understand the NCAA to be a huge multi-million dollar corporation, and I think a company always has the option to censure itself in the wake of scandal. It’s good business to show that cover-up will not be tolerated.

Question: Besides Basketball & Football, what other collegiate sports rank high in revenue/attendance? I have the CBS College sports network, Big10 channel and a few other college sports stations that show other sports but it’s hard to gauge just by looking into the crowd. I think that track & field would be up there too perhaps.

Flea – It really depends on the school after those 2 sports.
i.e. the 3rd sport is almost always dependent on a winning record for that particular school. But for most school’s the 3rd sport in terms of revenue is the women’s Bball team unless they have a team that is exceptional in that particular sport.

Chuck Klosterman is wrong. “…I don’t know how damaging the football program does anything but make some moral point.” Isn’t that the point? To _make_ a moral point? The bottom line is that these guys are/were educators first. Or at least they were supposed to be. It can be argued that rape is worse than murder. Following that logic child rape is the worst possible thing that one human can do to another. Yet, what is _still_ worse? Covering it all up so that the program doesn’t look bad. Hitting the football program where it hurts was important. You can’t have a “win at all costs” attitude and not expect this.

I think, however knee-jerk the reaction, it was the correct one. How could those victims feel after seeing the grinning JoePa statue, exuberantly holding up the a #1, knowing that to him they were just a minor disturbance that could be swept under the rug?

This punishment is incredible. I read somewhere that they won’t be back to full scholarships until 2020, the kids they’ll be recruiting are 9 right now! This won’t only effect sports it will effect attendance, whose going to want to go to a school where a known pedophile raped kids?

The only part of the punishment I don’t agree with is the loss of scholarships.

I’ve never disagreed with anything I’ve read on TSS more, so uh… good job Ryan? That’s pretty impressive in its own right I guess.

I don’t think this is a knee-jerk reaction at all, the fact of the matter is crime itself came out months ago. I’m sure the NCAA had been considering the entire time what they would do if it came out that they had willingly covered things up. I think it’s funny that you mention Chuck Klosterman, because there was a great article about this on Grantland. They put athletics over academics, the law, ethics, and the health and safety of children. Fuck them. Sports are not an essential part of college, if you’ve proven that your athletic program has negatively impacted academics (which Penn State has), then you have no right to an athletic program. I would have given their football program the death penalty if it had been my choice. As for the players? Who cares, really? The good ones would get accepted into another program, the bad ones would not. Oh well, they’d have to plan on getting a job in their career field, which is probably what would happen to them anyway. No matter what punishment you give there will be collateral damage in the present; you just have to make sure it is worth it in the long run.

“Sports are not an essential part of college,”
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For the kid who wouldn’t go to college if he didn’t have his football scholarship, it’s pretty essential.

That’s what makes this “punishment” hard to accept. Who’s really getting punished here? Sandusky’s under the jail, Paterno’s dead, and the higher-ups are about to lose their positions but will probably land on their feet in the long run. I guess shit ultimately rolls downhill…

I understand that. But I imagine you are not essential to your institution, at least not for academic reasons. I’m not trying to be harsh, it’s just the truth. I wish athletics and academics could co-exist in a way that was beneficial to both, but I’m not so sure that’s the case.

Just because Sandusky and Paterno are already in jail/dead does not mean they can not be punished further. Paterno’s memory deserves to be tarnished, and that’s what this ruling guarantees.

Penn State put the reputation of Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno over the reputations of the abused children, the institution itself, and their alumni.The fact of the matter is Penn State put winning over EVERYTHING; don’t we tell all children that winning is not what is important?

Sandusky is in jail. Paterno’s dead, his legacy is tarnished, his win record is gone. Curley, Schultz, and Spanier have been ousted from the school and are currently (or will be real soon in Spanier’s case) facing perjury charges and will likely get locked up. What else can the NCAA do? I agree with a hefty fine and requiring them to follow the Freeh report’s strict recommendations, but the rest is excessive. The people responsible for this tragedy are being/have been dealt with.

Usually when TSS writes about sports, I’m left SMH but this was very well done, Ryan. Some commenters, not so much.

Yes, I’ve read that and it’s an opinion piece, not a factual article. I agree with Weinreb: “There are four men who betrayed this legacy, and I hold them all equally responsible. Beyond the egregious and irreparable damage to those children, I hold them accountable for a betrayal of the people who raised me…. They made this a Penn State scandal. In so doing, they cheapened everything my alma mater ever purported to stand for, and that is unforgivable.”

Four men.

I was actually hoping Weinreb would weigh in again yesterday after the NCAA took action.

I think the punished is fit for the crime, and it should reflect throughout the NCAA on not just issues of sexual scandal, but the murder, rape, and everything else crime related we ALL know is associated with NCAA football programs. Their practically glorified like NFL athletes so of course they feel the power to do whatever they feel they want with no reprocussions whatsoever.

Is the magnitude of this punishment appropriate given that one single guy did some fucked up shit? No.

Is the magnitude of this punishment appropriate given that one single guy did some fucked up shit and then a number of individuals in positions of power decided it would be in the best interest of the sports program to turn a blind eye to it? Uh, yes. Of course.

c dub – as a product of an HBCU from the SWAC, I hate to break this to you.. but Eddie goes to #2 from 3 in total wins.
John Gagliardi has top spot and is still adding. And pls don’t try to say it’s in a different division because that is the same argument they use against Coach Robinson.
On another note. Bear Bryant moves back up the list.. I am sure he is bragging right now.
Roll Tide!!